WHEREAS:

Historically, employers established employment policies with the assumption that the majority of workers were men who were the sole economic supporter of their families; and

WHEREAS:

Today, only twenty-five percent of families fit this image, while forty-eight percent of families with children have both parents in the workforce, nineteen percent of families consist of a single parent who works outside the home; and

WHEREAS:

The large influx of women into paid employment in recent decades is expected to continue. By the year 2000, eighty percent of women ages 25-54 will be in the workforce, including more than two-thirds of all women with children under 18; and

WHEREAS:

Families increasingly need to have two incomes just to maintain a basic living standard; and

WHEREAS:

Contingent work and part-time work is growing much faster than total employment, and such employment rarely provides health care, sick leave, pension or other benefits; and

WHEREAS:

Today's family cannot rely on a parent or sibling to help care for a family member, because so many families no longer live close to each other.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That society and employers must take more responsibility for providing comprehensive family support systems that acknowledge the dual role that most adults have today in the workplace and the home. Public policies and employer programs which apply to both traditional and non-traditional families need to be enacted that encourage such family support as: family and medical leave, domestic partner benefits, national health insurance providing long term care, pay equity, a decent minimum wage, safe and affordable child and other dependent care with decent wages and benefits for dependent care workers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

That AFSCME and its affiliates will continue to work for all of these family support programs through collective bargaining as well as through lobbying for legislative changes at the national and state levels.

SUBMITTED BY:

Steve Culen, IVP and President
AFSCME Council 31
Illinois

Jacquie Jones-Walsh, President
Ruth Skalbania, Recording Secretary
AFSCME Local 843, Council 28
Washington

Charles Hicks, President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 1808, Council 20
District of Columbia